An expert has issued a chilling warning about the threat of nuclear war, stating that “hundreds of millions” would die in just minutes.
Annie Jacobsen, an author who has written several best-selling books on America’s military, explained that if a Russian or Chinese missile launch is detected, the US president would have just six minutes to make a crucial decision.
She revealed to podcaster Lex Fridman that the current US policy of “launch on warning” means that retaliation would happen before there was time to ask questions about why the initial alert had been triggered.
“We are one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear Armageddon and no matter how nuclear war starts, it ends with everyone dead,” she warned.
“The US Defense Department has an early warning system. And the system in space is called SBIRS, a constellation of satellites that is keeping an eye on all of America’s enemies.”
“So the moment an ICBM launches, they see the hot rocket exhaust on the ICBM a fraction of a second after it launches. And so there begins this horrifying policy called launch on warning, and that’s the US counterattack.”, reports the Daily Star.
“The reason that the United States is so ferociously watching for a nuclear launch somewhere around the globe is so that the nuclear command and control system in the US can move into action to immediately make a counterstrike.”
“That policy, launch on warning, is exactly like it says, it means the United States will not wait to absorb a nuclear attack. It will launch nuclear weapons in response before the bomb actually hits.”
In the past, there have been times when Russian or American forces were ordered to launch a nuclear strike, only to find out later that the order was given by mistake.
Former US president Ronald Reagan previously questioned whether it’s sensible to start a nuclear war based on a blip on a radar screen.
“The best sort of hitting the nail on the head statement is in President Reagan’s memoirs,” she said.
“He refers to the six-minute window and calls it irrational. He says, ‘How can anyone make a decision to launch nuclear weapons based on a blip on a radar scope? ‘”.
She highlights that unlike what we see in films, a nuclear missile can’t be called back or redirected once the launch button has been pressed something President Reagan himself didn’t know.
The effects of a nuclear explosion are still not widely understood she says, and the resulting mushroom cloud would pull in people from miles around and hurl them into the sky as they burned to death with the horror being repeated in cities across the world.
“The United States has 1,770 nuclear weapons deployed, meaning those weapons could launch in as little as 60 seconds and up to a couple minutes. Some of them on the bombers might take an hour or so,” she said.
“Russia has 1,674 deployed nuclear weapons, same scenario, their weapon systems are on par with ours. That’s not to mention the 12,500 nuclear weapons amongst the other nine nuclear-armed nations.”
When the weapons detonate, 300mph winds would cause carnage, she says.
“You’re talking about people miles out getting sucked up into that stem. When you see the mushroom cloud, that would be people,” she said.
She says that she interviewed dozens of major political and military figures about the concept of nuclear deterrents, and they all agreed on one detail.
“Every source I interviewed for this book, from former Secretaries of Defence, nuclear sub force commanders, Stratcom commanders, FEMA directors, nuclear weapons engineers, they all shared with me the common denominator that nuclear war is insane,” she said.
If a US president made that fateful decision to strike back, countless lives would be snuffed out in less time than it takes to play a game of football.
“First millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people will die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war.”
“And then comes nuclear winter where the billions then die from starvation.”